Other aspirants kicked against Mr. Fayose’s candidacy. A former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, whom an anti-graft agency says stole at least N416 million public funds while in office, is to be the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the June 21 governorship election in the state. Mr. Fayose was on Saturday declared winner of the PDP governorship primaries in Ekiti. Mr. Fayose emerged winner with 462 votes out of a total of 477 votes cast. The leader of the PDP panel which conducted the primaries, Peter Odili, announced that the immediate past Minister of Police Affairs, Caleb Olubolade, scored 7 votes. Mr. Odili, a former Rivers State governor, said that Dayo Adeyeye came third with 3 votes while Modupe Ogundipe came forth with one vote. He said a total of 544 delegates were accredited for the exercise, out of which four votes were voided.
Even though he seeks to
govern Ekiti again, Mr. Fayose is being prosecuted by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for stealing state funds during his initial
stint as governor (2003-2006) Stealing from the state.
In December, a principal prosecution witness in the trial of Mr. Fayose told a Federal High Court in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, that Mr. Fayose lied on his asset declaration.The witness, Abubakar Aliyu Madaki, told the court that the former governor lied in his asset declaration when he claimed that he had two buildings in Iyaganku area of Ibadan, Oyo State.“We wrote a letter to the Code of Conduct Bureau, and in its reply, it was stated that in the asset declaration form that Fayose filled, that he claimed he built a house in the year 2004 to 2006. This is not true because in the course of investigation, it was discovered that what he earlier declared in 1998, that he had a two-storey building, was a lie, as he did not own a plot of land as at then”, he said.In addition, Mr. Madaki told the court that Mr. Fayose also claimed in his asset declaration that he had N100 million (One hundred Million naira) in an account with the former Bank PHB (now keystone bank).
“When we conducted our investigation, it was discovered
that the said account belong to People’s Democratic Party
and the balance in the account was less than N50, 000 (Fifty thousand Naira) as
against the claimed N100 million.”
Mr. Madaki further told the
court that among issues raised in the petitions received by the EFCC against Mr.
Fayose was the construction of a poultry project in Ekiti State. The 16 local
government councils of the state contributed about N400 million for the poultry
project and about N400 million came from the state government for the four
designated centres for the project.
The EFCC witness said that
N300 million was released for the construction of the Poultry Farm headquarters
in Afao, Ekiti State. The project was contracted to Biological Concept Limited.
The Chairman of the company, Gbenga James, was invited and questioned on why
only four out of the alleged 20 poultry projects were successfully completed.
Further investigations as well as documents recovered from the house of one Mr.
Wale, a friend of Mr. James, revealed what the chunk of the money was expended
on.
According to Mr. Madaki,
among the documents recovered from Wale’s house was a cheque
book.
“From the cheque book, we discovered that about N9.5million was used to construct Fayose’s building in Ibadan; a particular amount was used to purchase a brand new Mercedes Benz for the accused’s mother in Ibadan. Also, there was an acknowledgement of $50,000 that Fayose instructed James to give to Mrs. Olujimi, a former deputy governor of the state. Also, some amount was paid into Feyi Fayose and Moji Fayose accounts respectively. Wale explained that he got hold of the document from his friend, James, who kept it in his custody”.Mr. Madaki further told the court that N150 million was used by James to purchase a battery cage for Evians Specialist, a company belonging to James.Mr. Fayose has denied stealing any funds while in office.Despite the ongoing prosecution, however, Mr. Fayose emerged the PDP candidate. Should he win the June election, he would enjoy immunity from prosecution after he is sworn-in based on Section 308 of the Nigerian constitution. The case would then be stalled until he leaves office.
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